Adventures of Beta Squad
by Gehenna79
Summary: A Stranded conscript joins the fight against the Locust, and winds up in some intense adventures with familiar faces. Takes place 9 years after E-day.
1. Chapter 1

**Gears of War**

**Adventures of Beta Squad**

**I.**

* * *

**Nine Years after Emergence Day, Jacinto, Tyrus.**

"Next."

The requisitions Clerk who spoke was a middle aged woman with gray hairs already popping up between clumps of brown, wearing a blue shirt and pants, and had lines of weariness impressed into her face, a common trait among many people in Jacinto. She had a slight curve in her stomach, denoting that she was pregnant, which was another common thing for women in Jacinto. All women were encouraged, if not outright forced, into giving birth to more children to fuel the war effort. Yet another freedom that the COG had taken away from its citizens.

At least in my opinion anyway.

I showed her my yellow ticket, denoting that I was allowed to retrieve a suit of armor for frontline duty. She looked at it for a moment, then went back. She came back a few moments later, carrying a few pieces of metal and clothing strapped together in leather belts, looking a little ragged and grimy.

"Last guy who wore this, immolated by a Scorcher. You'll find that there are quite a bit of scorch marks, but its still for the most part good, and the lights still are functional."

I looked them over. Some of the padding around the upper torso had black burn marks on them, just as the lady had said, but I shrugged and said, "Thanks."

"No problem, next!"

I headed over to the lockers. I needed to put this on and then get to the CIC where I would be given my deployment roster, which would inform me as to what squad I was going to get put in service with. I prayed to the spirits I wouldn't be put in it with some stuck-up Pendulum Vet, as those usually had a nice lecture about how people like me were disgraces to the COG.

I didn't want to be here though, but I had no choice.

I had been a Stranded, living out in the ruins of bombed out cities, scrounging up whatever I needed to survive, and even eating some of the smaller Locust forms, like the Wretches and the Tickers, to survive. But even before this war, my family had been pretty anti-COG, against their whole "society first" socialistic way of doing everything. My father was never a Gear, my mother was a nurse, and my little sister, Maria, well she was only six when the Locust emerged from their holes and screwed the world up for good.

She was the reason I was here. She had gotten sick, and we didn't have any medicine. But my father's last words to me before the Hammer Strikes took her was to keep her safe at all costs. And my pride wasn't worth Maria's death. So I sucked it up, and joined the enemies that had abandoned us, and probably caused the death of my parents. But they would have told me to do it, that I was sure of.

Maria was being taken care of in a camp for Stranded being brought back to the COG due to "Operation Lifeboat" as it was being called. The camp was up north, far away from the front lines, and heavily guarded, since it was also where the food was being made. I figured that if Maria was where the food was, then she had to be safe, since all that food was what the COG depended on the most, that and there limited source of ammunition and Imulsion. I worried a little that they'd try to force her on those Breeding programs, but from what I had heard, they were only doing that to their own people, not any of the Stranded, as they had quite the capacity for parasites and pre-industrial diseases. So I put that thought aside for the moment.

But just because she was safe, didn't mean I needed to like where I was at.

I walked into a yellow shower room, naked Gears all around, rubbing themselves down with soap and letting beads of cold water rain down on them. Before I had gone to basic training, I had not taken a proper shower in years, and it had felt so good. Now that I was clean and respectable, well...I hated cold water.

I bore it without any trouble though, stripping down and asserting my right to wash with the other Gears. I got a few looks, but people didn't think too much of me. They needed all the help I could get. Still, with such a small population now, people could figure out easily who was a stranger, and who was a Stranded.

Finally, after that I got dressed again and suited up.

Wearing COG armor is a strange experience; its big and bulky, but at the same time you still have quite a bit of movement. I also liked the feel of being encased in a metal suit. It was approaching winter just about then, so having something that covered all my body suited me just fine. In the summer though, Gears would strip off parts of their armor, baring their arms and taking off their helmets. In fact, I had seen several Gears not wearing helmets, even though the regulations clearly said you had to. I wasn't sure why these Gears wanted to decrease their protection, but stupid is as stupid does, my father used to say.

I walked over out of the back exit of the showers and walked out into an open road. The road was in good shape for the moment, and so were many of the buildings. Jacinto was the last real bastion of civilization. Most of the rest of the world looked like shit though, even parts in Tyrus. Two questions I always had though were: if the Locust can tunnel anywhere they choose, why didn't they tunnel underneath Jacinto? And the other one was, if the Locust could tunnel anywhere, why didn't they attack with several coordinated strikes on places all over Sera, instead of attacking just the coast and moving in? Then again, they weren't the brightest, from what I had seen.

The CIC was located at the town hall at the end of the street. I walked down it, watching as Gears and military convoys made their regular rounds through the crowded byways. King Raven Choppers flew by between the coils of Suspension bridges, their blades making that _wup-wup-wup_ noise that heralds their arrival. Most civilian traffic was gone, cars weren't much good for anything now other than providing parts to fix military vehicles, but there were still a lot of abandoned ones still here. I walked by what seemed to be a former bank, where several canvas tents had been propped up, and people were living there in camps, Gears and civilians both. Jacinto was home to a lot of refugees, and they all needed to go somewhere.

The sky was a dark gray that day, full of clouds, looking like it was about to rain. I saw a trio of assault derricks move by on a bridge to the north, hearing them rumble along by, and occasionally honking with a cruise-ship-like honk.

The smell of barbecued meat wafted in the air, making my tongue wet with hunger. So far, I had gotten a few questions from other recruits asking how I had eaten so well, since I had a much bigger physique than most Stranded. I feared the general outcry at the thought of somebody eating Locust, even if it was one of the animal kinds, so I always answered, "There's a lot of canned food out there, that even the Hammer wasn't powerful enough to destroy."

Someday I'd come clean, and wouldn't that be the shock?

I walked into the CIC, and saw a long line of armored recruits, most of them unarmed, but some already having gotten access to Lancers, waiting, probably for their own assignments. The town might have once been an elegant building in its heyday, with tiled floors and marble columns running parallel on either side of the room, but now most of it was taking up by sandbag fortifications, command tents, and computer diagnostic stations that were probably up day and night by the CIC controllers.

I sighed, got in line, and waited for about an hour. I killed the time by counting all the females in the room, and deciding on a proper rating for their attractiveness. I knew I had little real chance of getting noticed enough to get a lay in; Stranded were considered by some to not be anything more than animals, and even the tolerant ones were probably already taken, in the need to keep repopulating the planet with soldiers. That was okay with me though, I wouldn't be good at pleasing them, I had only been fourteen when Emergence day come, and with the need to survive, I hadn't really the time to look out for romance. Therefore I was twenty-three and still a virgin.

Second to my parent's death, that was probably the thing I hated the Grubs the most for. And the COG.

Anytime I got like that though, I just thought about Maria, and continued on. She was pretty much my reason for existing. Without her, I probably would have pulled the trigger on me a long time ago.

Finally, I got up to the end of the line. Awaiting me was a woman in a gray dress that covered her head to toe. She wore gray gloves, and she had blonde hair that was tied up in a conservative bun. She had eyeliner on, and I wondered where the hell she got that from. She also wore high heels: in a CIC. God, the COG were stupid.

"Ma'am," I said saluting, "Private Miles Cooper reporting for duty."

"Cooper...Cooper," the CIC controller said, talking very fast, with no discernible accent, though she looked Tyran, "Aha, you're slated for three months of duty with Beta squad, a new squad drawn up from survivors of Omega Platoon, 26 RTI."

"Who do I report to?"

"Sergeant Marcus Fenix," the woman answered me, "He'll be waiting for you downstairs in the sub-basement. I think you're the last one in."

"Great, I'm already making first impressions."

"I'm sure...he'll be reasonable, considering the amount of Stranded that have been recruited this month alone."

"Uh-huh, thanks ma'am."

"Next!"

I prayed to the spirits that I didn't have to sit through another line, and that proved out to be true.

The downstairs was full of round tables where Gears sat around, playing cards, having drinks or a quick cigarette. I guess I had entered the recreation room, of a sort.

I looked around and scanned the officer's badges until I found Fenix. I found him sitting a table to the back. He was a heavy-set man, wearing a do-rag, and gray-steel armor. He was the kind of guy who looked like you didn't want to mess with him, and that he had earned his rank. That assured me, at least I was with somebody who knew what they were doing. Next to him were two other soldiers. One with scruffy black hair and an absurdly thick jawline, with kind of darker skin, and the other was a woman, a woman with dark red hair tied up in a ponytail. Her face was flat and somewhat grim, and she was wearing the same standard issue armor as me, while the other two were wearing gray-steel variants.

I walked over and did the customary salute, "Private Miles Cooper reporting for duty, Sergeant Fenix."

Fenix gave me a long stare, a once-over, judging me, then finally said, his voice extremely gravelly and deep, "Glad to see you could make it, Private."

The other male soldier snickered and say, "Go easy on the kid, Marcus, its his first day."

I resented being called kid, but this guy seemed like he was trying to do some good, so I shrugged it off. "Sorry, there was a line," I explained.

Sergeant Fenix got up, and so did the others. He pointed at the good guy, "That's Dom," Dom nodded, "and that's Private Hendrik."

"You can call me Sofia," she said, letting off a quick, warm smile. I smiled back, like an idiot, since I was wearing my helmet.

"Lets get going," said the Sergeant, "We've already got our orders."

"What are those, sir?" I asked.

"Don't call me sir, first of all," said Fenix brusquely. I was not liking this man's attitude much so far.

"He hates it," added Dom.

"Second, we're going to board an APC with a Convoy going down to Ephyra, on the front lines. We'll be helping maintain the perimeter. A nice few months of taking pot shots at Locust."

I frowned underneath my mask; I hoped that the communication lines were working fine down there. I wanted to stay in touch with Maria when I could. So far, I called her just about every night, but I had let her know the night before that I might not be able to call for a little while. I also hoped that the Locust down in Ephyra were as inept and stupid as the ones in Timgad, where me and Maria had lived for a time as Stranded. We had also spent some time in Landown as well.

"Sounds like fun," was my noncommittal reply.

"A regular vacation," replied Sofia.

"Lets get moving, Beta."

And then we were off.

* * *

**Author's Note: Beta Squad is is one of several new squads drawn up from the survivors of deceased platoons. I'm not completely sure if Sofia is alive around this time or not, so this might have to be considered non-canon. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Gears of War**

**Adventures of Beta Squad**

**II**

* * *

**Later that Day**

"So what's your story?" asked Dom Santiago.

All four of us were sitting inside a very cramped APC. I was squeezed up against Sergeant Fenix, his shoulder plates almost able to brush my chin, and Dom and Sofia were pressed against each other across from us. Dom looked clearly uncomfortable, though I'm not sure why, Sofia was quite attractive. Maybe that was why he was trying to pitch a conversation, otherwise the only sound that could be heard was the rumble of tires on the shitty roads beneath us. The APC was quite dark, with only small shafts of light breaking through the side panels, and from the driver's windows. Our seats were hard, and there were all sorts of knobs and switches and wires sticking out of the walls, more than I could dare count.

"Me?" I pretended to play dumb.

"Yeah, you. Miles."

"Not much to tell," I say modestly, "I'm just a Stranded, trying to get by in this world."

"Where did you grow up in, before the war?"

"Timgad. Went to vacation once to one of the South Islands, Narua or some shit. Haven't done much traveling besides that. Yourself?"

"Oh, I'm from Ephyra, Tyrus. Grew up with the Sergeant."

"I see," was all I said to that, then I asked, "How long you been a Gear?"

Dom sucked in some air and said, "Since I was seventeen."

"Wow. So like..."

"Ten years about, wouldn't you say, Marcus?"

"Yeah," was all the Sergeant said.

"Ten years," repeated Dom.

"What about you?" I asked Sofia, who hadn't said a damn word since we had gotten in the APC, but she seemed to have warmth underneath her exterior, and I wanted to coax it out, for curiosity's sake.

"Pretty much the same," she replied, melancholy laced on her words, "I was trained to become an Onyx Guard, but was booted out of the Academy for disobeying orders."

"Wow," I said. Anytime I heard about a Gear disobeying orders, I found that surprising. I always figured Gears would rather die than fail their objective, part of their collective_ indoctrination_, as my father called it. "What did you do?"

"Can't talk about it, its classified."

"Ah, sorry."

"Don't sweat it, you'll hear more of that to come for the next few years."

"If I live that long," I said realistically. Nobody said anything to that.

Another hour of relative silence sprang up, and the APC kept on rolling. Then Dom asked Marcus, "You ever wonder why the Grubs have taken so long to finish us off?"

"No."

I smirked at that.

"What's so funny, Private?" the Sergeant asked with a snarl. Apparently, he had been watching me.

I answered, "Just the way you answered that, Sergeant."

Marcus looked me up and down and then said, "Don't spend too much time worrying about why they do anything. Doesn't make them drop any different, or keep them from gaining more territory each day."

"I'll agree with that," I said, "All we need to know is what direction to shoot."

"Yep." I had expected a little bit more validation, and felt pathetic with myself. I shut up again, but Dom kept it going and said, "Sorry, but I can't help but being curious, I'd like to know that there was a reason for all this genocide, that they didn't just decide to do this for shits and giggles."

"Talk to Private Baird in Four-ELI," said Sofia, "He knows quite a bit about the Locust...somehow."

"Never heard of him," said Marcus, and for the third time, he ended a conversation.

I sighed. It was going to be a long tour.

* * *

Two hours later, we arrived at the main line. When I got out, I was not overcome by sunlight, as the sky was gray and the sun was already heading down. Everywhere I looked, the ruins of old buildings, flattened and stomped down like insects, were covered in a thick coat of gray ash, remnants of the Hammer strikes that had destroyed so much of the world ten years ago. It left a bitter taste in my mouth, but I ignored it and regrouped with my squad as we started a slow walk towards our post.

To say there wasn't much would be an understatement; for all intents and purposes, we had a foxhole with very thing lines running to other fox holes down the line. We had an olive green covering tarp placed over it, prodded up by thin metal rods probably scavenged from old fences. Down the line, I could see the other Gears in foxholes, standing at the top, enjoying a cigarette, or standing alert, waiting for any sign of enemy movement. I instantly thought about how stupid it was to even build a fortification line, when the enemy could tunnel behind you and take you in the ass.

Then I remembered, for some reason, the Locust couldn't tunnel into Ephyra. I decided to finally ask about that. "Sergeant," I said, "Why can't the Locust tunnel into Ephyra?"

"Rock's too hard. But there are fissures they can exploit, so keep your guard up."

That made sense, as far as I was concerned.

We walked into our foxhole. The floor was made out of smooth, cold dirt, and there were two chairs to sit on, and a jug full of water, or at least I hoped it was water.

"Where's our commanding officer?" asked Sofia.

"Its Hoffman," grunted Marcus, "He'll come to us."

"I have the sense," I said, "That this isn't glamorous frontline service."

"No, it isn't," replied Marcus simply, "Probably a lot of waiting around for Grubs."

"But they will come," said Dom grimly, "You can count on that."

Oh great.

A few minutes later, a Gear came into our foxhole and told us that Colonel Hoffman wanted to see us now, but to leave one of us with to guard the foxhole. Sofia volunteered, and we left her alone with only her thoughts. We walked down the line, the walls of it cramping in on me, due to the bulky armor I was wearing. I have claustrophobia, so it was quite uncomfortable, and I was quite welcome to get back on top again.

Where we ended up seemed to be right outside a large public high school. The sign out on the front said, "Parkay High School."

"I wonder who he was," I said out loud unconsciously.

"Or she," said Dom.

I shrugged at that.

"Come on, we need to get moving," said Marcus quietly, as if he didn't really care what we did.

We walked inside what had once been the gym. A large hoopball court with floors that were still lacquered but not in their best condition was inside, with rows of folded up seats on either side of the room. There had been a banner on the wall, a gray one with the picture of a bee or hornet or something of that nature, but it had been cut down, and hung lopsided, the right side tailing the ground.

"Hm."

Just like the CIC room, there was a large set up of computers and workstations spread out everywhere, but it was far less busy than back in Jacinto.

A large, bulky, older gentleman walked up to us, a black military cap on his head. He had a blocky head and thin lips, and his hair was gray as the ash outside. I saw the Colonel insignia, and deciding to play on the safe side then get in trouble for not observing the proper protocol, I saluted to him, though Marcus and Dom did not.

"At ease," he said to me, as if he were telling a cat to get off the kitchen table. That was all he said to me for the rest of the conversation.

"What's the situation, Colonel?" said Marcus gruffly.

"We sit and wait for the Grubs to come is the situation. For the last few months they have been slowly encroaching on Ephyra, waiting for the time to attack. That time is coming soon, mark my words, so we're pulling all operations out of the Ashlands and back here. Though we still have a few recon units out there pulling intel, Salton, Cruise, Bardock, you know, the usuals."

"Got it, so looks like we're just stuck here for a little R&R."

Hoffman _humphed_, "You might say that. Look, why don't you get some grub. Then I'm going to be putting you in pairs, running perimeter guard for four hours at a time. They're also is a need for maintenance as well, so you can take care of that. Welcome to your home for the next three months. Fallback troops from outside the perimeter are coming in too in the next few weeks, so wait before you just shoot anything that comes out of the trees."

"Roger that," said Marcus, and Hoffman went to go check on something, then he turned to me and said, "Rook, after mess, go back to the foxhole and pair up with Hendrik. You'll be perimeter buddies with her, until I give the say so."

Well you could have worse jobs. Walking a perimeter and waiting for certain death with an attractive woman wasn't too bad as long as we were getting food for it. I merely said, "Yes, Sergeant," and we moseyed on out of there.


End file.
